spooky scary sleepy hollow

When I was in second grade, my teacher turned off all the lights and read us The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving. You know, the story of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman. I was seven, and I was absolutely terrified. I remember worrying about it all day and dreading going to bed because I was certain that the Headless Horseman was going to come to my house. Like a good little girl, however, I got in bed when I was told and attempted to go to sleep. I tossed and turned and worried nearly the whole night. In the middle of the night (more likely 10:00 or 11:00 which must have felt like the middle of the night to little old seven-year-old me), I began to hear a noise. Clop, clop! Clop, clop! Clop, clop! It was the Headless Horseman coming to get me. I was rigid with fear. I could not move. Clop, clop! Clop, clop! He was coming and getting closer at every moment. What could I do? Summoning all of my courage, I jumped from my bed as far as I could across the room (to prevent the monsters under my bed from reaching out and grabbing my ankles, of course) with a running leap and raced next door into my parent's room. I huddled in a scared puddle by the side of their bed (they must not have had monsters under their bed) until they roused sufficiently to ask me what was wrong. What is making that noise, I whimpered. The furnace. Doesn't everyone have a furnace that clop, clops like the Headless Horseman?

Twenty-five years later I live less than an hour away from Sleepy Hollow, New York. Since I discovered this fact, I have been itching to get myself up there and check the place out. And lay to rest my memories of that terror from second grade. And maybe, perhaps, to inflict the terror on my own children. The kids and I ventured to the spooky site of the legend on a lovely fall weekend with my parents who were visiting. The cemetery is absolutely beautiful. We took a quick driving tour on the narrow, narrow roads while I mostly panicked because no one else seemed to be driving on the roads and was I really supposed to be driving on them and where was I going and there was no where to turn around and please don't let me get in trouble because I am the only one driving on these cemetery roads and finally we turned around and went back the way we came and didn't meet any other cars coming head on which would have necessitated someone backing up for a long distance until there was room to pass. I wouldn't recommend the car tour. We enjoyed a lovely picnic near, but not on, the gravestones. We wandered about and saw the monuments for Carnegie and Rockefeller and the gravestone for Washington Irving. The newly refinished Headless Horseman bridge was fun to throw rocks from into the water. And we may or may not have climbed on a few headstones. When you're two and there are an endless number of things to climb on that are just the right height, you might give in and climb a bit. And your mom might let you.